Finding the Form with Sara Wilson
I love a good book, a novel with the kind of storytelling that can leave you changed. There’s a feeling that comes when you’ve finished the last sentence of the journey you’ve been on for days, weeks, months. It’s that last inhale as the old you, and the exhale of the new as you close the cover. A good poem can recreate this moment in just minutes, it’s just such a turbocharged form.
When I spend time in nature, and for this poem it was a quiet campground on a nearby island, a meadow lit by the living night sky, I find moments that need keeping. A poem is the perfect place to keep them. And working with the poem, the challenges it brings, the questions that come up, the sparks of realization, I find opportunities to take these small moments and frame something larger within them. The simple lives of mice, the organized reel of every star above.
“I keep pocket notebooks with me at all times. If I’m not writing something new, then I’m tinkering with all the poems that are in progress.”
I prefer to start a poem by hand, jotting down ideas, phrases, and images with pen on paper. As the parts of the poem get honed and shoved around, I find I need to keep rewriting it out, and it doesn’t help that even I have a hard time reading my own handwriting. It’s a very messy process. Eventually I type it out to see how the poem lives in this space, print it, and trim or fold the paper to tuck it into my notebook and keep it portable. There’s always more fine tuning. I keep pocket notebooks with me at all times. If I’m not writing something new, then I’m tinkering with all the poems that are in progress.
Sara Wilson is a graduate of Vancouver Island University, with a BA majoring in Creative Writing. Her poetry has appeared in various publications such as Dinosaur Porn, The Dalhousie Review, CV2, Nod, Qwerty, Ottawa Arts Review, and Event. She is a Red Seal Sheet Metal Journeyman, a terrible birdwatcher, and an occasional guitar tuner.
Photo by Jensine Odom on Unsplash